Employee Charged In Pizza Hut Murder

July 2, 1996|By EVELYN LARRUBIA Staff Writer and Staff writer David Cazares contributed to this report.

PEMBROKE PINES - — Police on Monday arrested a second suspect and recovered the murder weapon in Sunday's early morning robbery-murder at a Pizza Hut restaurant.

Investigators charged Julian Aaron Jacobs, 22, an employee at another Pizza Hut franchise, with murder, attempted murder and armed robbery. He is being held at the Broward County Jail without bail.

Detectives said Jacobs and Clyde Preston, 19, who was arrested on Sunday, chose to rob the restaurant in the 2000 block of University Drive because they knew the night shift manager, Derek Jermaine Jackson, and knew he would be working.

Once inside the restaurant, they fatally shot high school honor student Timothy Lee Ahrens, 18, in the kitchen, then shot Jackson, 20, in the head in an effort to get away with the armed robbery. Then they walked out the door with an undisclosed amount of cash.

"They didn't want to leave any witnesses," Sgt. Ray Raimondi said.

But they left two.

Jackson is in critical but stable condition at Memorial Regional Hospital in Hollywood.

And Raimondi said a third man, who was working for the store that night delivering pizzas, escaped injury by hiding in the restaurant's bathroom.

It was he who called police.

Raimondi would not release the identity of the third employee on Monday nor would he say what the man saw or heard, citing an ongoing investigation.

However, a spokesman for Pizza Hut Inc. said Preston and Jacobs walked into the restaurant 15 minutes before it closed on Saturday to eat-in customers. They were asked to leave at closing time.

"Derek did ask them to leave," said Pizza Hut spokesman Rob Doughty. "They left, but came back later and asked to use the bathroom. That's when they were allowed back into the store."

Doughty said the company has a policy that only employees who are actually working are allowed inside the restaurant after closing.

"Tim should not have been allowed in either because he was not working that night," Doughty said.

Ahrens, a popular cook at the restaurant and a 1996 honor graduate of Hollywood Christian School, had arrived at the restaurant to take Jackson home. He had given Jackson a ride to work earlier in the day because Jackson was having a problem with his car, Doughty said.

"If our policy had been followed, this might not have happened," he said.

Preston and Jacobs knew Jackson from Miramar High School, where all three had attended, Raimondi said. They also knew him through Pizza Hut.

Jacobs is an employee at the chain's 9700 Pines Blvd. restaurant. Preston used to work at the same outlet.

Neither Jacobs nor Preston has criminal records in Florida, according to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

Detectives said they recovered the handgun used in the murder on Monday and also recovered cash they think was stolen from the restaurant. They would not say where, however.

Pembroke Pines Police Commander John Nasta said Sunday was the first time a fast-food store in the area had been struck by robbers this year.

Meanwhile, Ahrens' friends tried to make some sense of his death.

Ahrens was planning to study aerospace engineering on a $30,000 scholarship at Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne in the fall.

"He was a very serious student," said Beverly Russell, secretary to the high school principal. "This kid had things he wanted to be and places he wanted to go. And he would have gotten there."

Later this week, Ahrens' family and classmates had planned to cheer him on as he escorted Olympic Torch Relay runners through Broward, school administrators said.

Instead, family and friends will attend a memorial service scheduled for 11 a.m. Saturday at First Baptist Church of west Hollywood.